Going on vacation? Don't expect LTA if you travel abroad

Without a doubt, income tax is a taxing issue for most employees. Even claiming Leave Travel Allowance (LTA) exemption is not an easy thing to understand. Many know that LTA can be claimed only for domestic travel within the country. But what if your travel includes a foreign trip, but the final destination is India? Can you claim a LTA for such a journey?

According to a report published in The Times of India, today, you can’t. The reports said, “Tax exemption on leave travel allowance or LTA can be claimed only on domestic travel and cannot be clubbed with an overseas journey. If an air ticket comprises Indian and overseas components, no exemption will be provided either on the entire cost or on partial Indian travel.”

[caption id=“attachment_784433” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] As per the Indian Income Tax rules, you can get an LTA exemption for any journey you make by air. Reuters[/caption]

The TOI story said that a Public Sector Employee, one Om Prakash Gupta had approached the Chandigarh bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), since his travel had final destination as India on his air ticket, (the journey was via Singapore and Malaysia), he should be allowed to claim the entire air fare.

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However, the authorities did not agree with Gupta’s argument, since the India Income law, does not stipulate a journey to any place in India via out-side India route. In fact the authorities, also ruled out the plaintiff’s request to at least, consider the India part of the journey. Read the whole TOI story here.

As per the Indian Income Tax rules, you can get an LTA exemption for any journey you make by air, road or rail anywhere in India . As far as air travel goes, an economy class fare of a national carrier via the shortest route is allowed. LTA exemption can be claimed for two journeys performed in a block of four calendar years, of course, provided you fulfill certain conditions. To know more on how to claim your leave travel allowance read _Firstpost’_s personal finance story here.